HC: School can be booked for student?s death

IN A landmark judgement, Justice Vinod Prasad of the Allahabad High Court has ruled the school management can be prosecuted for culpable homicide not amounting to murder in the event of the death of a student during a school-sponsored tour. The school authorities would be fully responsible for such an incident. The verdict was delivered in connection with the death of the Samajwadi Party Muzaffarnagar district president?s son Nishant Chauhan.

IN A landmark judgement, Justice Vinod Prasad of the Allahabad High Court has ruled the school management can be prosecuted for culpable homicide not amounting to murder in the event of the death of a student during a school-sponsored tour. The school authorities would be fully responsible for such an incident. The verdict was delivered in connection with the death of the Samajwadi Party Muzaffarnagar district president’s son Nishant Chauhan.

Nishant, who did not know to swim, drowned during a school-sponsored trip to Goa on November 5, 2005.

The court gave its verdict after hearing an application filed by Scholars’ Home All India Senior Secondary School principal Chhaya Khanna and others. The school is located at 153, Rajpura Road, Jakhan (Dehradun). The application followed a chargesheet and a trial in the court of the additional chief judicial magistrate, Muzaffarnagar.

Nishant’s father filed an FIR. The High Court ruled the incident was the result of total carelessness of duty entrusted by the law and by the parents. The High Court observed that the tour started from Dehradun and ended only after the students returned to Dehradun. There was no snapping of the link of continuity and it could not be said that the journey had ended in Goa, the court said.

When contacted, Nishant’s father Sanjay Chauhan said his intention in filing a case was only to ensure that in future no management escaped the legal consequences of neglect.

Sanjay Chauhan said as soon as the school authorities in Dehradun came to know of the judgement, they gave up their defiant attitude and apologised for the death of Nishant. They also announced that the school library would be named after him. Besides, a scholarship in his name would be instituted and the Nishant Chauhan Trophy would be awarded every year to winners of the cricket and the football tournaments of the school.